Reagan is THREE!

 

Honestly, I will greatly miss Reagan being two. She has been the most delightful two-year-old ever known! But, alas, she turned three!
We had a party for her on Sunday night, and then spent today opening her presents from Mom and Dad and grandparents. It was a ton of fun.
Here is some of the Sunday fun:

 All of her party food was pink, of course.

 Including the traditional elephant cake, made by mom.

 "Thanks, Great Grandpa."

 Ready to blow out the candle.

 Unwrapping gifts.

 The picture taking fail of blowing out the candle.

And this morning:

 Princess dress up clothes

Getting help unwrapping gifts from her brother early in the morning, before Daddy went to work. Brothers are great!
We got a gift back in October of a play kitchen. We got a little distracted, and didn't try to assemble it before the weekend before her birthday, and found that there were no instructions included, and none available on the internet. We emailed everyone we could think of, and I had three emails in my inbox on Monday morning with instructions of how to put the kitchen together. So, the kitchen did not come until later the night of her birthday, which was totally okay with her. She was delighted to get it!

 Playing with it while being dressed as Belle, because of course we have to do that!

Anyway, it's quite the detailed kitchen.

Things I want to remember about Reagan when she turned 3:
1. She is such a GIRL! She tells me several times a day that her favorite colors are pink and purple. She loves anything princess and girl.
2. She loves to sing. Every night before bed, she sings me several songs, usually, "Incy Wincy Spider," "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and "I am a Child of God" to name a few.
3. She LOVES her brother, and protects him just as much as he protects her. She is fiercely loyal to him.
4. She loves to say prayers, and sometimes forgets whether she should "bless the food" or not. Often, she asks me during the prayer. And there are often addendums after her prayers, because she forgets to say certain things.
5. She is SO BIG. She is pretty much Davis's age. Just ask her. She can do ANYTHING by herself!

Happy Birthday, Daddy!

Chris had a great birthday this year, especially because at the time of his birthday, he had a job! He was hired by Bonneville School District 93, working at Rocky Mountain Middle School, teaching Special Education in a contained classroom. He went to work after Thanksgiving, because, having been a teacher before, he knew that there was no way that he could just waltz in starting in January without knowing how the classroom was run and expect things to go well. His principal thought that he should be payed, which he was of course, not opposed to. His pay was moved up to November 27th, which means our benefits start this week, and paychecks start next week! Hallelujah!
Anyway, for his birthday, when he got done with school, he opened some presents, with help from Davis and Reagan. Then we took the kids to dinner at Grandpa's BBQ here in town, which, I must say, was fabulous!
We are so lucky to have such a great daddy and husband!

Running shoes, of course!

Thanksgiving 2017

Because our life has been completely up in the air, we decided to just do Thanksgiving at our house with our family. It was so fun to just have a non-stress holiday, because heaven knows, we have enough stress in our lives right now!

 Here are my kitchen helpers, with cheesy grins included!

And here is our pose at the table!

Davis is FIVE!!

Davis turned FIVE this week! Holy smokes! It's hard to believe that he's really been in our family for five years . . . part of me thinks it's been an eternity that he's been here, and part of me feels like it started yesterday!
We had a very fun little superhero birthday with his friends on Saturday.

 They had several games in the "super hero training," including push-ups, sit-ups, and burpees. Then we went downstairs and shot silly string at a poster that had spiders on it. We also did a pin-the-dot on the Batman insignia, and a target practice as well. The kids thought the games were great.

Blowing out candles on the birthday cupcake. This was actually the only time that he blew out the candles. #momfail. Oh, well.

Then, on Sunday, we had a party with family

He opened his presents, and then we all had ice cream and cake, which was great fun. We had mint ice cream, chosen because he wanted the green one.

On Monday, we had to make a trip to Utah to get both of our fingerprints taken. So, after we got home, we opened presents, and then took the kids to Reed's Dairy and they had ice cream for dinner. Another #momfail. But when it's your birthday, it's okay, right?

Eating lunch in Odgden

Opening his presents from us, including a tool chest that now resides in his bedroom. Along with his legos, his bedroom is now a more popular place than the family room!!

Things I want to remember about Davis turning five:
1. He is still such a nice boy. He always tries to be kind to everyone, especially Reagan.
2. He loves to play pretend. From one moment to the next, he might go from PJ Masks to Batman to Spiderman to Thomas the Train. And every time I try to call him by whatever he is pretending to be, he says, "Mom! I'm just pretending!!" I always say, "Oh, thanks. I get mixed up."
3. Most of his games with Reagan are just one telling the other one what to say. Sometimes they try to tell me what to say too. It never works.
4. Davis is FASCINATED with numbers and letters and EVERYTHING!! He loves to tell me what he has learned in preschool and try to figure out how it works in real life.
5. Davis still loves to sing. He has brought several new songs that he has learned in primary and preschool home with him. They are always fabulous songs!

We love this little boy and can't wait to see what he will turn out to be in his life!

Family pictures

We had our family pictures taken this year by the lovely Allison. As usual, she did a fantastic job!

I'm trying to decide which of these will work best for our big picture in the living room. Opinions would be greatly appreciated.

And here are some more, just for fun:

Halloween 2017

Halloween 2017 was definitely a success! Even though we are currently undergoing issues with unemployment and Chris, we were still able to have fun with the whole holiday! First, we had the ward trunk-or-treat:

Davis was a pirate for this, because no masks were allowed. Reagan chose to wear the Tinkerbell costume, because she could.

The day before Halloween, we went to see the hay bales in town that were decorated to look like Star Wars characters:

They do this every year. We really should make it a tradition to go see them, because they are very cool, and not too far away!
Then, of course, the pumpkin carving:

Davis wanted his pumpkin to be a ghost, and Reagan wanted hers to be a kitty cat. Chris is an awesome and skilled pumpkin carver, as you can see!
On Halloween, this little girl sat with me in the family room and watched Halloween kids shows while I was folding laundry. I know it's not too exciting, but there you have it. This was the only part of the festivities where she wore the original costume I got for Halloween, which is Belle. But that;s not really the point of getting costumes, right?

On Halloween, we went to the Halloween party at the library. It was a lot of fun!

Reagan was the very first one to dance along with the music before the festivities. And she decided to wear her Snow White dress for it.
And then, the real event, the trick-or-treating:

Davis was a storm trooper, and Reagan was Snow White. Notice the snow coats under their costumes. I love living in Idaho! We mostly went to see family, which was super fun!

This morning, Davis was disappointed that we still had Halloween decorations in our house. So, we promptly took care of those and put up the Thanksgiving decorations.

Davis is sitting by the boy scarecrow, and Reagan is sitting by the girl. Because duh!

Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!!